Now available is Volume 8 in our Reading Romans Through History and Cultures series, Reformation Readings of Romans, edited by Kathy Ehrensperger and R. Ward Holder! It's available in the US and will be released in the UK in August.
I must say that as I read these essays, I was struck by their depth and comprehensiveness. Any student or heir of the Reformation would benefit well from the scholarship and thoughtfulness therein.
Writes Calvin J. Roetzel, Arnold Lowe Professor of Religious Studies at Macalester College, "This is an important book in a significant series on Paul's most influential letter. It allows us to eavesdrop on world-class scholars discussing the Reformers' portrait of Paul and his legacy. For any serious student of the reception history of Paul, this is a must."
I couldn't agree more!
R. Ward Holder has kindly offered his thoughts on this new volume:
Reformation Readings of Romans presents the next step in the Romans through History and Cultures seminar and publishing project of the Society for Biblical Literature. The series presents a window on a set of rather unique conversations, and the volume itself provides a distinctive addition to the series.
First, the conversations between New Testament scholars and historians of Christianity are distinctive. Finding scholarship on Romans by a modern scholar is entirely painless, as even a brief trip to the Internet will demonstrate. Similarly, the number of articles and monographs on historical theologians’ interpretation of Romans by modern historians is also a straightforward task. However, it is rare to see the two communities of modern scholars actually talk to each other. Far too frequently, modern scholarship that concentrates upon Romans seeks to leap back to Paul’s age by clearing away the intervening centuries, seeking to avoid contact with a tradition of interpretation. Even when a movement like the New Perspective on Paul does take the history of interpretation into account, it is repeatedly the case that this is done to correct the past mistakes of interpretation. Similarly, historians of exegesis regularly write scholarship that stops with the death of a particular theologian, and ignore the advances in our knowledge of Paul, his time, and his audience that the modern period have provided.
This seminar regularly breaks down this isolating tendency. Repeatedly, scholars called each other to examine the presuppositions of their discipline. Time and again, new possibilities for understanding both Paul and the interpretive tradition that has grown up around his longest epistle came to light. This on-going conversation, institutionalized through the seminar and the series of volumes published, represents a true value to the scholarly community.
Second, with the Reformation volume, the series approaches more closely the issues of the modern age. It was the Reformation that saw the general return to the Greek text for argumentation. It was the Reformation that raised so centrally and so urgently the issues that have been linked to Romans throughout the twentieth century – the issue of the human will, the character of the law, the question of predestination, to name just a few. This volume immediately addresses these with several considerations of Erasmus and his textual impact, a comparison of Luther and Erasmus as interpreters of Paul, a consideration of Calvin on the issue of the will, and an examination of Bucer’s conception of the law. While we find that the answers that the Reformation-era exegetes gave to these and other questions differ appreciably from the answers of our own day, we continue to be intrigued by the way that the questions remain so constant.
We hope that the issues that fascinated the members of the seminar, represented in these essays and responses, entices a wider circle of readers, and draws them to further engagement with Romans, and its interpreters.
Excellent! I'm teaching a Master's Course on Romans in the Reformed Tradition in August and this book will come in most handy!
Posted by: Michael Bird | June 23, 2008 at 04:56 PM